Peoplegeist.com

Peoplegeist is, simply put, designed to make it easier to find information about people for the purpose of forming and maintaining stronger relationships.

  

We had a long and insightful chat with Mr. ‘Darian Wilson‘; Founder of the US (Washington)-based start-up “Peoplegeist”.

“Peoplegeist“ is a social people search engine that allows you to present your digital self to the world and interact with those who are most interested in you by adding your links and answering questions they send you.

Below is the full interview that we have conducted with Mr. ‘Wilson’ regarding his start-up company ”Peoplegeist”;

1. What is it exactly that you do and what “Peoplegeist” is all about?

It is a commonly held belief by those in the know that the information revolution will be won by those who can design the best filters to help people find and use all the data gathering in the cloud. At the same time, people around the world are increasingly using the Internet for two main purposes – one to form and maintain relationships and two to find information. Peoplegeist is, simply put, designed to make it easier to find information about people for the purpose of forming and maintaining stronger relationships.

2. When has “Peoplegeist” been founded? And what stage is “Peoplegeist” currently at?

The Peoplegeist team first came together in July 2012 when four partners decided to hire a developer to build the site. The first version was launched in October 2012. Another programmer was brought on-board in November 2012 and the current version went online in December 2012. Funding for the site came from the initial four partners, with less than $5,000 being invested in site development to date.

3. What is “Peoplegeist”s business model and how does it work?

We are operating as a 100% always free social media site at this time and we will never charge members for our basic services. As the community grows, we will perhaps experiment with a search result advertising system similar to Google or we may decide to charge for premium services above and beyond what is currently offered on the site for free. Bottom line is we created this site in an attempt to change the way people find and communicate with each other using social media. That will always be our primary focus, and we will look at possible revenue models as the community grows and tells us what it needs, wants and is willing to pay for.

4. How did your team meet? And who in your team does what?

The four initial partners have all never met in person, but are all tied together through the founder who knows each of them in either a personal and/or professional capacity. When it came time to hire developers, we conducted a very careful vetting process using online employment and freelance services. We are truly a global team with members in the U.S., Japan, Singapore and Brazil, and we are able to conduct all of our business using online communication and collaboration tools.

5. What, exactly, makes you different from existing options, what will make your product and/or service stand out in the marketplace? In other words what’s unique about you and what’s new about what you make?

When you look closely at almost all of the most popular social media sites available today, the one thing that becomes very clear is that many of the “conversations” taking place online appear to be very one-sided. On Facebook, for example, someone will make a post. Another ten people will comment on the post. Then the next post will appear and all is forgotten and the group moves on. Let’s not even think about how someone following 30,000 people on Twitter could respond or even read all of those posts. Peoplegeist is designed to be more permanent, and uses a question-and-answer format to foster a better sense of real conversation and connection. It is also designed to be more permanent, and we hope that people will be able to go read your information on our site 10 years from now and still feel that it is relevant and useful to what they are seeking.

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